pixie99

I went to medical assisting school before I was a R.N. The instructor there pronounced dyspnea and tachypnea "dis-peenia and tacky-peenia" I shudder to think of how many MAs went out into the world pronouncing it that way. I was too shy to correct her but on my last day of class I left a note on her desk correcting the pronounciation. can't remember if I signed it or not. And don't get me started on my BIO teacher who talked about ecosystems and "all the polar bears and penguins living at the north pole."

Oh- I almost forgot.... The hospitalists we called "square dancers" because they changed partners every time they turned around.

A&W: Alert and weird

:rotfl:I have to stop reading this thread. I am trying to drink coffee and it keeps coming out my nose I am laughing so hard.

My first day working in LTC, i received report "Betty, nothing new. Sarah, she's ok. The boys is 212, well that one had a high sugar but the other is ok." I was seriously in tears after the 20 patient report. I was used to M/S reports with name, age, dx, surgeon, heart rhythm,last narcs, dressings/drains/incisions/mother's neighbor's daughter-in-law's underwear size.

Amen, sister.

As a PCA/caregiver your job is to assist/remind the pt to take/apply/remove his meds. I assume you are not pouring meds into his mouth, just providing them and allowing him to choose to take or not. Thus, you are not legally "administering" them. Along the same lines, you are "reminding" him to take off the patch each eve, not holding him down and prying off the patches. A full skin assessment is not the daily norm in LTC. If this fellow is not able to remember when and where the patches are, he should be assessed for needing a higher level of care. This is not your job as a PCA, but as an aspiring nurse it is something to remember and learn from. An OD of nitro would cause low BPs, not to my knowledge fever. So I dont think his problem had anything to do with the abundance of patches. Good luck to you and him

I've been a nurse for 12 years and I have never gotton over 1. Adult stools and 2. phlegm. When I hve to empty a commode I just lean over the toilet (door closed) and loose my lunch/breakfast/coffee while I flush the contents of the commode away.

I'm not an NP but I used to do phone triage for a pediatric clinic. The standard answer for phone requests for ABX or narcs was that the MD or NP would need to examine the child, we dont just call in meds at parents' request. My documentation of the phone call, in the patient chart, would include in quotation marks every 4 letter word and insult to my parentage that the caller responded with. The next time they brought kiddo in the doctor would open the chart and say "oh, I see you called our nurse a %$#&(( and threatened her with XYZ" One of the physicians would just give a stern look but the others would inform the parent that they had 15 days to find another provider, and a certified letter would folow. If they grovelled, cried, begged and apologized to me sometimes they would be re admitted to the clinic. Seeing their own words in quotes in the chart embarrased them into acting right. And no, I did not delete my charted phone call after they apologized. It was there for eternity.

Better living through chemistry, I say! I agree that ativan during the working hours is not a good idea, however there might be new meds and alternatives. You might consider choosing a APRN as your mental health provider, he/she might have some insight to your problems that a physician would not. Also, most nurses are a little "off". It's our weird wiring that makes us choose this job, no?

The nurse's legal obligation is to make sure the patient SIGNS the consent: that is, match the name on the arm band to the name signed, to verify identity, then the nurse signs as a witness to the signature.(kind of like a notary). The nurse is NOT obtaining consent, nor is she a witness to anything the surgeon told the patient to inform him.

So, you might stay at Gaylord, unhappily, and pass up a dream job because you feel guitly about leaving? Sounds like my second marriage.

Yep, patients who complain about the previous nurse will probably complain about you too. It's called 'manipulation." When patients start, I tell them that if I listen, it is merely gossip, but would they like to talk to the supervisor? Before they can answer I call the sup and ask him to come in and play hostess. Usually they forget their complaints when they find that they can't manipulate us.

I was a model. No kidding. I had exceptional posture and I can still entertain my co workers by balancing a breakfast tray on my head while I walk gracefully down the hall during med pass.

I was an R.N. for 10 years and took a job in LTC when I moved to a new city and didn't have the "connections" to the hospitals yet. For 6 months I vomited on my way t work, cried on the way home and suffered panic attacks, unable to breathe during every shift there. Seriously I thought I would be a patient there myself before I was done. The only nurses who got lunch breaks and didn't go fruitcakes were the ones who charted untruthfully and signed off meds and treatments that weren't done. They had just sunk into "survival mode." Long term care is the worst nightmare ever inflicted on the nursing profession. It's not you.

I think that "lose my license" might be code for "hit with a huge malpractice suit that will liquidate everything that I have ever worked for, force me to work past retirement, deny my children the education I have saved for and leave me homeless,, which my employer will not provide me with any defense and deny culpability for my work situation and environment."

Bedside report makes zero sense. My patients get very grumpy when they have just been wakened by the aid to check vitals, then get wakened again by me at 7 to listen to their own report. We get punished for having overtime so we have to rush through 6 reports in 30 minutes which is impossible when the patient wants to have some "input". But here is a funny: night nurse Alma was trying to convey to me that the patient, other than a broken leg, was a "negative assessment." Her exact words, in front of the patient, were "she's pretty much been negative all night." To which the outrage patient said "IHAVENOT! I've been very pleasant!" so much for patient satisfaction

If an A&O patient is told to request help getting up and fails to do so, if he falls, it's his own dang fault. The bed alarm merely would have alerted someone to his fall sooner. It would not have prevented his fall. I am sick and tired of nurses taking the blame for every bad choice a patient makes.

When I hang a piggy back antibiotic, I stand and stare at it long enough to count 1-2-3 drips in the drip chamber. Always. this is after I got chewed out about leaving a piggyback clamped. The three drips is about the only OCD thing I do at work.

1. Your English is perfect. 2. You are a good nurse who cares about all of your patients. 3. You had appropriate physician orders to address his pain and you carried them out appropriately after assessing. 4. I doubt very much that you would have recieved orders to do any thing differently if you had called the physician. 5. A person who had end-stage cancer, in a long term setting--why wasn't this person on palliative care with generous pain control orders? Palliative or hospice care accepts that death is inevitable to all, and comes sooner than planned to some, and allows that death to happen with minimum of pain and fuss. Maybe your facility needs to advocate for better palliative orders for these types of patients. 6. We hurt because we care.